Rone – Tohu Bohu

Your European Backpacking Soundtrack

The enigmatic singer, songwriter, rapper, and all around quirky Frenchman, Erwan Castex, has been stunning his international devotees and underground electronic aficionados alike under his music producing moniker, Rone. After a decisive move from Paris to Berlin, Rone’s unique style of music has also undergone a transplant for his latest work, titled Tohu Bohu. As if embodying the laid back vibe of the city itself, this 10 track record lends ethereal soundscapes for all facets of everyday life.

“Templehof” opens Tohu Bohu with pulsing ambient electronics, steeped in trance foundations with a vivid tropical island feel. This song comes to a spiraling crescendo, cueing the beginning of “Bye Bye Macadam,” which builds slowly with savory progressive layers of swirling electronic to an 808 drum beat.  “La Grande Ourse” beckons glitch drumming alongside the melodic bells found in a majority of songs on the album. The crown jewel of Tohu Bohu is the atypically experimental hip-hop jam, “Let’s Go,” featuring vocals from High Priest of Antipop Consortium in a deft new light.

Tohu Bohu offers lovers of experimental electronica and chillout ambient tunes a new aural voyage from which to embark. The songs start as uniform electronica toward the beginning of Tohu Bohu and diverge to something completely esoteric by the end of the album. As the album progresses listeners find themselves at distinctly different destinations. Rone’s sophomore full length endeavor is a blistering psycho-sexual pandemic of angelic beats and devilish dissonance. Aside from any number of superfluous new genre labels this album might inspire, one undisputable word used to describe Tohu Bohu is  esoteric.